Key West Not Always Safe Haven For Gays

April 8, 2002|By Mandy Bolen, Key West Citizen

KEY WEST -- Rob Riley left Key West with a broken nose -- because he's gay.

The Minnesota college professor was vacationing with his partner of five years, Dan Haakon. They were enjoying their last night in town with a steak dinner at Flagler's and a few drinks on Duval Street before returning to their Fleming Street guesthouse.

While walking hand in hand, Haakon and Riley were verbally assaulted by a trio of young men ranging in age, they think, from 17 to 23.

The men cursed and used a slur as the couple walked past, Riley said.

After a brief verbal joust in which Riley, 38, told the young men to mind their own business, one of them punched him in the nose and kept swinging.

As Haakon, 35, tried to separate the two, the unidentified attacker turned his attention to Haakon.

The attacker cursed and used a slur toward Haakon, who is unsure if he will return to the island that has been his vacation destination the past few years.

"It was really stunning that this would happen in Key West," Haakon said. "It's such a unique and comforting place."

The men had considered buying property in Key West, but may change their mind, though Riley continues to like the island. He has visited five times in the past six or seven years.

"I had never seen anything this overt before in Key West. It's a really remarkable place," he said. "But they were like a pack of snarling dogs."

Riley said he probably will return. "This happens everywhere. You just don't expect it in Key West."

Key West detectives are still looking for a suspect in what police have labeled a hate crime. In order for this distinction to be made, the suspect must be proven to have demonstrated prejudice while committing the crime. Such prejudice was evident in the slurs yelled by the attackers.

Of the five hate crimes reported to Key West police in the past 14 months, four involved anti-gay sentiments and assaults on gay men. Two of them resulted in immediate arrests.

Statewide, in 2000, 15 percent of reported hate crimes were based on sexual orientation.

Florida's hate-crime legislation was passed in 1989 as a means to increase the penalties for convictions of crimes where there was evidence of prejudice. What would normally be considered a simple battery on Riley was upgraded to the hate-crime classification, and therefore would be punished more severely.

Riley never expected to be subjected to hate in Key West, where tolerance, acceptance and diversity have been incorporated in the city's official "One Human Family" philosophy, but is Key West living up to its own philosophy?

"No, it's not. We have a ways to go," said Ginny Haller, former editor of the gay-oriented Celebrate! newspaper. "But in looking at the rest of the country, Key West is so far ahead, and I am proud to live here."

She compared the usually tolerant attitude of Key West to places such as Alabama, where a judge last month, during a custody battle involving a lesbian mother, said that "gays and lesbians are an inherent evil against which children must be protected."

"These are the battles facing the rest of the country," Haller said. "But we do have our own smaller battles in Key West."